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Gary Glitter in trouble in Vietnam
- Thread starter Miss Shelf
- Start date
abecedarian
Well-Known Member
Motokid said:
Ewwww Gross! Thanks for sharing Moto
As a parent, I'm wondering where these girls' parents were in all this.
Shade
New Member
"They" presumably being the sort of people who attacked the home of a paediatrician, or someone who had the same name as a sex offender 'named and shamed' in the News of the World.
Here's an idea for deciding whether someone's guilty or not that you lot might like: throw them in a lake and if they drown they're innocent, and if they survive they're guilty. It has a long traditional provenance too!
CDA said:
Well there goes the rule of law, folks!
Shade
New Member
CDA said:
Zolipara's right, he doesn't have a career, and to be honest never did have much of one in terms of actually putting records out. Can anyone name more than a few of his songs?
CDA said:
I presume by 'over-analyse' you mean 'analyse.' Nothing worse than being made to think about what you say, eh? But OK then, let's take another angle:
Tell that to Sally Clark, Stephen Downing, George McPhee, Steven Puaca, John Flanagan, Alan Richardson, and many many others.
No. I meant over-analyse. you can take what I said and try to make something out of it, or see the word "they" in the way it was meant: a popular saying. Quite what the above links have to do with Glitter and his allegations of kiddy-fiddling, I don't know.Shade said:
Feel free to make me think about what I say. But I'm not going to change my point of view that Glitter should be put away and buggered every day until he dies.
And no, I don't suppose he has a career. But I still have no sympathy for him at all. Never will.
Shade
New Member
I know that 'no smoke without fire' is a popular saying. My point was that the kind of people who use it as a serious debating point in a real situation are akin to the 'they' I listed earlier.
The links I posted have nothing to do with Gary Glitter. They concern again your suggestion that there is 'no smoke without fire' - in all these cases, and of course countless others, there was plenty of smoke but no fire, and because people like you thought otherwise, innocent people were locked up for years.
Gary Glitter is an unattractive figure on most levels, and I won't be much surprised if he is convicted. But he is entitled to a trial, just as Harold Shipman was, just as Frederick West was, just as Ian Huntley was. Until then he's presumed innocent, which is what that great legal authority Rumpole called the 'golden thread' that runs through the criminal justice system.
Dostoevsky said that a society should be judged "not by how it treats its outstanding citizens, but by how it treats its criminals." CDA said "bollocks to the rule of law." You'll forgive me if I stick with the old guy.
The links I posted have nothing to do with Gary Glitter. They concern again your suggestion that there is 'no smoke without fire' - in all these cases, and of course countless others, there was plenty of smoke but no fire, and because people like you thought otherwise, innocent people were locked up for years.
Gary Glitter is an unattractive figure on most levels, and I won't be much surprised if he is convicted. But he is entitled to a trial, just as Harold Shipman was, just as Frederick West was, just as Ian Huntley was. Until then he's presumed innocent, which is what that great legal authority Rumpole called the 'golden thread' that runs through the criminal justice system.
Dostoevsky said that a society should be judged "not by how it treats its outstanding citizens, but by how it treats its criminals." CDA said "bollocks to the rule of law." You'll forgive me if I stick with the old guy.
Shade said:
I wasn't trying to use the saying 'smoke without fire' as a serious point of argument. Yes, I get your point with the links you posted, and a very valid one it is two. And of course the kiddy-porn viewing pedo bastard Glitter is entitled to a fair trial.
I just hope it's in Vietnam.
But I think there is a lot wrong with the law in the UK, and IMO it is sometimes wrong and in favour of the criminal. That is what I meant by saying bollocks to the law. Wrong is wrong. I don't know how else to express myself on here.
novella
Active Member
In Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and elsewhere in Asia there is a well-known thriving sex trade in pimping young teens to people of any age. Often the families of the kids are the pimps. It's news, I guess, when the perp is Gary Glitter, but thousands of instances like this happen every day and go ignored and unprosecuted, so the media-driven outrage at this one poor asshole is invidious. The real crime is that it's a tacit part of the tourist industry, blackmarket though it may be.
abecedarian
Well-Known Member
novella said:
That's what I was thinking when I wondered where the parents were. You are right; the only reason the world is looking at this issue at the moment is because a celebrity is involved. Doesn't excuse the perp in this instance, but what about the thousands of other guys who haven't been caught?
Shade
New Member
CDA said:
It's not in favour of the criminal but this perception arises I think because there is a very high standard of proof for criminal trials in the UK, ie the case must be proved 'beyond reasonable doubt' (which is not the same thing as 'beyond any doubt'). This is to protect, as much as possible, innocent people from being convicted. The old argument 'it's better for ten guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be convicted' may not be one you agree with, but it's the cornerstone of the UK criminal justice system and nobody has yet come up with a better system, otherwise we'd have it. If the standard of proof was lower, eg a case had to be proved only 'on the balance of probabilities' (as with civil actions), then certainly more guilty people would be convicted and that may correct public perception that the law favours the criminal, but the other certainty is that more innocent people would be wrongly convicted and I personally don't think that's a price worth paying.
CDA said:
Well, mostly the law follows prevailing social views on morality, so what's wrong and what's illegal generally move together though not necessarily in sync. Sometimes the law follows changing public opinion (eg reduction in homosexual age of consent) and sometimes it leads it (eg drink driving). There will always be hard cases but they, as 'they' (ahum) say, make bad law.
Shade
New Member
While you're doing that, let me make a more general point. It's all very well, and most satisfying, to call for Glitter's balls to be cut off, but this is a thinking people's forum and I believe it's just as important to try to understand paedophile sex offenders as it is to condemn them. Otherwise how can we, as a society, try to minimise the risk of others abusing children in the future? The film The Woodsman starring Kevin Bacon as a recently released paedophile is instructive in this regard, and Roger Ebert's review of the film is well worth reading too.
Simply calling for offenders (of any kind) to be killed/castrated/thrown in a pit is not worthy of us. It appeals only to our sense of revenge which is not really an honourable motive. When British Prime Minister John Major, in response to the murder of James Bulger by two ten-year-old boys in 1993, said "We should condemn a little more and understand a little less," he could not have been more wrong. Condemn, yes, as much as you like, but seek to understand too, the better to prevent it happening again. (On that case Blake Morrison's book As If is essential reading.)
Another point occurs to me. We all think paedophiles are the lowest of the low. But what about studies which show that most of them were themselves abused as children? Say paedophile Mr X abuses a boy, A, as a child. If A grows up and becomes an abuser himself, at what point do we stop viewing him as a figure deserving of our greatest sympathy, and start to demonise him as with Mr X?
Simply calling for offenders (of any kind) to be killed/castrated/thrown in a pit is not worthy of us. It appeals only to our sense of revenge which is not really an honourable motive. When British Prime Minister John Major, in response to the murder of James Bulger by two ten-year-old boys in 1993, said "We should condemn a little more and understand a little less," he could not have been more wrong. Condemn, yes, as much as you like, but seek to understand too, the better to prevent it happening again. (On that case Blake Morrison's book As If is essential reading.)
Another point occurs to me. We all think paedophiles are the lowest of the low. But what about studies which show that most of them were themselves abused as children? Say paedophile Mr X abuses a boy, A, as a child. If A grows up and becomes an abuser himself, at what point do we stop viewing him as a figure deserving of our greatest sympathy, and start to demonise him as with Mr X?
Kookamoor
New Member
Great post, Shade. I've been biting my tongue because I was afraid of getting lynched and strung up by the mob here. But your post captures it all precisely. Is pedophilia a disease, a psycological condition or an evil pursuit? I think the jury is still out on that one. But understanding is crucial. I'm yet to put my thumb up or down on Glitter because he hasn't had a chance to defend himself. As I said earlier, if an underage girl lies and says she's 18 the matter becomes very complicated. Don't be too quick to judge... as Shade says, "this is a thinking people's forum". Even if it does turn out he's guilty as sin, is the answer to do away with the fellow? Or is there a more appropriate solution?